I just read a letter by Republican chairman Bud Walker complaining about an August 17th SUT news article which covered allegations of unethical conduct against a Republican town board member.

Walker’s letter doesn’t directly refute what is in the article. Instead, he launches a smear campaign against the reporter. The SUT reported what was said in a public meeting and on the record by town officials ( including quoting the Republican supervisor) and it did not make anything personal. Walker, on the other hand, takes personal matters not relevant to any of that and tries to stretch to make it a question of journalism. He is stretching so hard because he has no real point to make against the article.

To his attempted smear; a homeowner (the SUT reporter)  legalizing a pre-existing apartment is a common occurrence across the town, especially in old houses. We don’t know the history of every house and I don’t know the history of this one. But it is possible and even likely that over the years a basement apartment or summer kitchen might become defunct and suitable only for storage - and that could rightly be reflected in the assessment. Now that the new short term rental market has taken off and Airbnb has become so popular, many apartments or former storage rooms are getting fixed up for use and the houses will eventually be assessed for more. This could easily explain Walker’s allegations and most of us would agree renovating your home is a good thing. Especially so as everyone agrees in this case the homeowner ( reporter) did eventually go in to legalize it. Almost always this legalizing is routine. Despite what Walker writes, homeowners should know that if you go to the town hall and legalize something like that (and you should) it is good for everyone and you will be treated with respect and won’t be punished for it. If we condemn every Lloyd homeowner who may have filed something late or tried to fix a past zoning issue, there might not be many of us left to speak.

And that seems to be Walker’s real point after all. Because for all his harping on journalism Walker does not refute what was published, instead taking revenge against a town resident and smearing a journalist for doing his job. All because he doesn’t like the facts and doesn’t value transparency or newspapers keeping the public informed. Someone in the Republican Party should tell the chairman that is not the way a democracy works.